This is not socialism, it’s liberalism in a red dress. Sultana’s Purity Politics…
Zarah Sultana’s recent interview revealed a troubling authoritarian streak beneath her carefully burnished image of grassroots democracy. Before Your Party has held a single meeting or drafted a single policy, she has already drawn rigid ideological boundaries. “There is no room for socially conservative views in a socialist left-wing party. Period,” she declared, before Nish Kumar sneered that those who disagree should “join the Conservative Party and watch a Ricky Gervais Netflix special.” So much for the democratic part of democratic socialism.
But what she really said was there’s no room for anyone that’s not Pro-Trans…
The sleight of hand here is plain. The dividing line for entry into her “movement” is not opposition to austerity, nor resistance to monopoly capitalism, nor any of the material struggles that once defined socialism. It is conformity to a liberal position on transgender ideology. Class war has been quietly displaced by culture war.
And listen to the language she uses to enforce it:
I’ve always stood with the trans community, and I always will. The same forces targeting migrants and Muslims are attacking LGBTQ+ people, especially trans people. Our safety is in solidarity. None of us are free until all of us are free. That’s the new party we’re building. Bigotry has no place in it.
Stirring words, until you notice the sleight of tongue. In one sweeping gesture, racism, Islamophobia, and legitimate concerns about sex-based rights are folded into the same toxic category of “bigotry.” Women raising questions about safe spaces, fairness in sport, or the Orwellian erasure of language itself are dismissed as indistinguishable from far-right cranks.
Continue @ Labour Heartlands.
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